The present invention is to a new and distinct variety of mandarin orange tree which is named ‘US Early Pride’. ‘US Early Pride’ is a mandarin selection developed by the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service at Groveland, Fla. from an irradiated bud of the diploid mandarin cultivar ‘Fallglo’, an early season maturing variety. The pedigree of ‘Fallglo’ is ‘Bower’ by ‘Temple’.
‘US Early Pride’ originated as a single plant and was asexually reproduced by grafting budwood onto rootstocks. ‘US Early Pride’ was selected and propagated as follows. Irradiation of budwood from ‘Fallglo’ trees was accomplished in 1991 using 3 k RAD units of gamma irradiation from a Cobalt-60 irradiation source. Buds from this irradiation were propagated onto rootstocks in the greenhouse at the A.H. Whitmore Citrus Research Foundation Farm in Lake Co., Fla. where the trees were grown to field-plantable sized trees. These trees were planted in 1992 at the A.H. Whitmore farm. Fruit on the trees were evaluated in 1995 and two trees producing seedless fruit were identified. One of the trees (evaluated as 1-62-122, ‘US Early pride’) preformed better than the other and was selected for further evaluation. Buds were taken in 1996 and trees were propagated onto four rootstocks: Swingle, Cleopatra mandarin, sour orange and sun chu sha. Twenty trees were planted at the A.H. WHITMORE farm in 1997. Fruit production on these trees commenced in 2000. Additional propagations of ‘US EARLY PRIDE’ were maintained in the greenhouse at the A.H. WHITMORE farm.